A Daemon's Babble

One Half Wonder

A/N~ What is this nonsense? Does this nonsense even belong here?

There was something my fourth grade teacher said to when I was in her class, talking to the boy next to me and my feet on the seat in front of me. I remember the way she came prowling down that aisle, her lips pursued in a funny little expression, her arms crossed and her brown eyes unreadable. She stopped past my desk and tapped it, and I looked at her lazily, with a little lazy smile on my face. I remember the way she shook her head at me and said my name like a sigh, an exasperated tone. "I don't believe you," she had said, still shaking her head back and forth. "I come down this aisle and you see me and you still continue to talk."

I had grinned at her wildly, showing off all my teeth and with my glasses skewed on my nose, and said, "Sorry, Miss, but it was indeed a fascinating conversation," I said, in my odd little way of speaking.

She was still shaking her head back and forth, but she was amused now. She said my name again in that same way she did before and said something that made my smile go all sorts of crooked with mischief and childlike delight. "You are so blunt and realistic to a very harsh point, yet strangely optimistic and hopeful enough about the world to the point I can't understand why anyone would want to live in a dream."

***

There were these kids that lived down the street from me in fifth grade and still do. They were my age, if not a tad older, and both of them were shorter than me, a fact I never would let them forget. We were playing in my driveway, them running across and me trying hit the two boys with my bow and foam arrows, when one of them, the younger one, asked me something. "Hey, can we use those?" He was pointing to the rollerblades. I told him sure, and he gave one pair to his brother and put the others on, before offering me the last pair. I told him, rather sheepishly, that I didn't know how to rollerblade. He gave me a grin and told me he'd teach me.

Of course, me and this particular younger brother were sort of always squabbling with one another, but he seemed rather honest, so I put down my bow regretfully and slipped on the rollerblades. He proceeded to lead me out onto the driveway and push me down it. I, of course, was screaming, trying to keep my balance, and ended up falling on my face. Course, my hands and nose got pretty bloodied up, and he was apologizing to me over and over again and helping me up, skating down the driveway with perfect form to pull me to my feet. I had looked at him and asked him, "Hey, can you do that again?"

He gaped at me like I had told him something horrible and shocking. "Why? You need to come inside!" he told me worriedly, trying to wipe the blood from my hands.

"Well, because at the end I think I figured out how to brake. I need enough speed to test it out," I had told him confidently.

In my mind, it was logical. in his mind, however, it was something odd and out of the question. But he just smiled at me and told me incredulously, "Sometimes, when you say stuff like that, I wonder if you're even human."

I had given him a wild grin, all sorts of crooked and full of delighted mischief, and he gave me the same grin. He had gottten it from me, after all. "Sometimes I wonder that too."

***

In sixth grade, there was a girl who sat next to me in my Spanish class who was my polar opposite yet we unfortunately shared the same first name and our middle names were coincidentally similiar. I tended to avoid people I didn't like, yet for some odd reason in her eyes I was her new rival, yet I wanted nothing to do with her. She would jibe and jeer at me numerous times a day, and to others, I may have seemed I was trembling to prevent myself from crying, but, now, really, I do not cry over stuff like that. I was trembling because my entire body was screaming to hit her in the face multiple times until she couldn't move that jaw that moved to pester me daily. One day, I was trying my best to draw a small little elf-like thing in my notebook, but her high-pitched jabbering in my ear was making it hard to concentrate. Currently, she had given up on my personality and was moving to my looks. I don't remember exactly what some of her insults were, but I distinctly remember her saying my eyes looked like rotten almonds, which to this day I don't understand, but then she said something along the lines of, "And you hair. Ugh, your hair looks like a puffy poodle."

I had calmly turned to her, staring at her. This was something she couldn't stand. Whenever I looked at her, she would shut up. I don't know if my appearance was honestly that scary or if it was merely the death look I shot her day after day, but I told her very tightly but politely, "Thank you. I happen to love poodles, my aunt has one and it's very nice."

She had stared at me, more in shock. I really had never said anything against her and her pathetic excuses for insults, and to be honest, no matter how many times she made fun of my voice I was never sure if she had actually heard it. Then I smiled at her, a sort of beam with all the warmth in the world. So much warmth I'm surprised she didn't burn up, actually, but she just turned away. She never said anything to me again. I don't know exactly what I said to make her be quiet, if somehow that little ridiculous statement about my aunt's fictional poodle made an impact on her, but I never heard another complaint from her again. However, walking in the hallway one day to my locker, I saw her huddled with some of her friends and talking in hushed voices. Her eyes were directly on me, but I pretended I didn't notice. I managed to overhear her voice, soft with shock. "...she honestly frightens me. I mean, she smiled at me. Actually gave me this grin. A nice smile."

Then I had turned to her and she had frozen. All her little cronies had turned to me, and I grinned at them, full of delighted mischief and all sorts of crooked. I waved to her and she gave me a half-wave back. And as I walked away, I heard one of them say something utterly ridiculous and I had laughed. "WIth that smile, I wonder if she lives in a dream."

***

In seventh grade, we return to the younger of the two boys that lived down the street, who sat next to me in my history class. Our relationship had matured a bit more on his side, on my side, not so much. I still poked him and teased him and called him by the nickname he hated, and he put up with me and occasionally would scare me or taunt me. I wasn't even paying attention to him, though, talking to my undersized friend on my other side, I remember vaguely that we were talking about monkeys, when he tapped me on the shoulder. I had turned to him with a chirp of that dreaded nickname and a grin. And he, just out of the blue, gave me a grin that was all sorts of crooked, full of delighted mischief, and shaken his head the same way my fourth grade teacher had done, and said to me simply, "Do you know what you are?"

I had answered, thoroughly bemused, "A homo sapien? Odd? Strange? Brilliantly smart and stunningly good-looking?"

He had laughed at that, but shaken his head. "You are one half stupid." I opened my mouth to ask him what else was I, because I don't deny that, but he beat me to it. "And one half wonder."

***

In eighth grade, the last day to be specific, I was talking to my blonde friend, and we were hugging and sobbing because we weren't going to the same school yet still making fun of the sixth graders at the same time before beginning to cry again. When we were done, I had looked around. There was a dark-haired girl who was staring at everyone, looking almost surprised. A boy was lurking behind her, hands shoved in his pockets, nodding to anyone to came past him. An undersized friend of mine was loftily talking to her also undersized friend, saying that she would be dying her hair a different color this summer. I had turned to see my two friends who lived down the street getting into their car. The older one just gave me one of those 'sup nods, while the younger of the two smiled at me, a nice smile, waved, and then got into his car. They drove off, and I found myself mourning the loss as if I would never see them again. My blonde friend jerked my attention back to her. "Hey." I blinked at her, making an inquisitive noise in the back of my throat, too afraid that if I spoke I'd start crying again. She gave me a shrug, her eyes all red. "We're not going to the same school." I nodded. "So. Even though we're keeping in touch, we better be... What're you going to do? Like, with high school and college and life and stuff?"

I laughed. "You're thinking way too far ahead!" I sang merrily, and she smiled at me. "You're gonna be there for part of it, but tell me, what do you think I would do?"

It was an honest question, and I didn't know what she was going to say, but she gave me the perfect answer, one that I might've given myself. "I dunno. I think you would live happily ever after."